Dance Till You're Dead
by ashtrails
Summary: As I read once, every life form is on the peak of evolution. That's because we're all survivors.Retrospectively, while hunkered down in the smoking, smouldering wreck of a Kodiak right in the middle of the debris we once called London, this statement began to lose some of its credibility; though I couldn't wholly discard it either.
1. Army of Me

01: Army of Me

As I read once, every life form is on the peak of evolution.

That's because we're all survivors.

Retrospectively, while hunkered down in the smoking, smouldering wreck of a _Kodiak _right in the middle of the debris we once called London, this statement began to lose some of its credibility; though I couldn't wholly discard it either.

After all, despite the crash landing of our three-million credit coffin and the surge of paralyzing panic, the off-beat jackhammer pounding against the inside of my chest was my still-beating heart; and trying to fill my helmet with puke were supposedly several other of my organs, all indicating one thing: I was still alive.

And a good mixture of technical know-how as well as a desperate talent for ad-lib solutions made sure things stayed this way.

Since our shuttle crashed, so, five minutes and counting, my turret roared and spat death behind the _Kodiak's _barrier I had managed to power up again.

For now, I kept the grotesque routine of hasty repairs, piles of husk bodies and constant mortal fear up and going.

Admittedly, that's far more than my squadmates could claim, who dangled in all kinds of unhealthy angles from their seats or were splattered all over the crash site. Their polarized visors stared at me approvingly, but since they all knew I stayed in the game on borrowed time, I couldn't exactly expect standing ovations, I guess.

Cynical? Come on...

Being done over at project _Crucible _and getting labelled as 'Combat Engineer', as if there's nothing else to be done, now that's cynical.

I can't blame anybody who bought Admiral Hackett's _Stand strong. Stand together _bullshit, though. I was there myself, I'd heard it all before and I still believed it anyway.

The Sol Relay spat out more ships than there were stars. Fleet after fleet, joining forces to stem the tide against the Reapers, right on our home world. The biggest armada the Galaxy had ever seen!

During these very moments, when our curtain fire lit up Earth's orbit, and even an ancient machine with a god-complex had to admit that the current harvest had more teeth and claws than expected...things didn't seem so dire anymore.

A few flashbacks, including this lofty yet gut-wrenching moment, later, I was jarred right back into deadly and no less gut-wrenching reality. Here, projectiles hit the collapsing barrier and the bright beam, plus accompanying reverberation, of a Reaper's Hades Cannon, almost made me blind and deaf when I'd failed to keep track of my omni-tool's timer. Again.

At the same time, this reminded me why I was here in the first place . All things considered, the mission parameters along the lines of 'Stop the 160 meter high AA unit on foot' and their chances of success had gone from 'ridiculous' to, optimistically speaking, 'close to zero'.

During the drop, I wrote an algorithm to get the exact success rate, just to keep my mind off the impending suicide mission. But you know, not going to spoil anything. It's enough being marked as a cynic, I don't need the egghead label as well, thanks.

Sight and hearing were back online, proving their worth as they helped me spot the grenade landing with a soft _ping _right in front of my feet. My spinal cord and legs did some grunt work during the knee-jerk dive for cover, while my brain processed the bad news of Marauders and Cannibals now having advanced enough to smoke me out.

Plasma and shrapnel ripped my turret to shreds and knocked my ears out flat again.

I sent what would probably be my final drone on its journey to buy me some time, shoving a fresh thermo-clip into my _Phalanx._

The heavy pistol failed to give me the confidence one would expect from a weapon like that; I wasn't exactly sure how I could make the few shots I had left count anyway.

After the crash, however, I had to choose between this and a _Widow _sniper rifle, which was probably going to rip my arm clean off as soon as I pulled the trigger.

Just like the good cardboard cut-out at the wrong side of the shooting range I had become , I popped out of cover and relied on the good old spray-and-pray.

Yes, with a semi-auto weapon.

Even before I could check if any or how many husks I could take down on the broken metropolis' streets, my shields collapsed and I was back, bruised and battered, behind my make-do cover.

Without blaming me for my incompetence, the routines of my suit did their job, sealing ruptures and providing me with just enough medi-gel and painkillers so I wouldn't pass out.

Timer!

This time I had the presence of mind to close my eyes, so the Hades Cannon's beam wouldn't blind me. This also helped a great deal not only to spot a husk right on the debris shielding me from direct hits, but also to shoot that thing right away.

It made for a nice opportunity to get a live impression of what I knew only from other soldiers' reports: shoot one of the bastards and at least two others pop up to tear you apart.

Those husks seemed familiar with our war reports, as two of them charged me with that nightmarish moaning.

I took one of the synthetics down as my gun punched right through it, but had to slice one with my omni-blade as it forced me into close-quarter combat. The mindless shock trooper, flailing, impaled himself on the razor-thin blade, forcing both of us to the ground in the process.

Through sticky dirt and my panting breath clouding my visor, I saw its hollow face and another one climbing the concrete.

That's it.

Game over.

Beaten to death by husks in a back alley between the street canyons and ruins that once were London.

No one worth shit was gonna know who I was or even pick up my dog tags, so I could at least be added to a memorial wall, joining the millions of other casualties; provided somebody could pull this mission off, anyway.

Fuck.

I kept going despite all that.

Irrelevances like awareness couldn't just overwrite evolution, so my body was denying the inevitable. The way I was fighting and screaming, one could think I hadn't already made my peace.

Body and mind don't always agree, it seems.

Everything slowed down, dampened. The omnipresent gunfire seemed far away; no bullets or grenades.

My opponent went limp but the disfigured muscles of the human husk atop the cover tensed, ready for the leap.

All in vain, since an armored hand yanked away the instantly struggling husk, pulling it down the cover's blind side.

The familiar slashing of omni-blades never sounded so good, that I can tell you.

During the cannon's next high energy pulse, a figure vaulted over the debris, landing no farther than one meter next to me.

With a casual jolt, the dead husk's weight disappeared from my chest and another helping hand pulled me back behind the concrete where I happily hunkered down.

Overstrained, but putting my best foot forward to stay focused, my senses tried to tell me this was in fact an Alliance soldier at my side. Tech armor, means Sentinel program, as the bright orange glow of the energy armor complementing kinetic barriers with controlled warp fields, told me. Since armor suits tended to be skintight, I figured out pretty fast that my savior was a woman.

'Anyone else coming? Are you the reinforcements?', I asked, repeating the question after realising I needed to sync our channels. A good thing, I might add, as the first attempt was an octave too close to nervous breakdown levels.

All I got at first, was a silent shaking of the head, completely hidden by a Kestrel-helmet.

'KIA.', informed her raspy voice behind my own visor. 'I'm everything you're gonna get.', she added, reloading her _Avenger _assault rifle.

'Evac?', I suggested accompanied by the droning boom of the AA cannon.

Now that she'd cleared the field from the enemy's rear, we had some precious moments of respite.

'Negative. Anything landing here would be taken down hard by that thing or the Harvesters.', the Sentinel made clear, and that well-known feeling of nausea crawled back through my innards, as she disconnected heavy equipment from one of the hardpoints of her armor. 'Can you fix that? 'It's an M- 920 Cain_. _Salvaged it from the shuttle crash landed with yours, couple of clicks from here.'

I ran a quickscan on the heavy weapon, as well as on the equipment and vitals of the soldier.

Damaged armor, old model, N-series but with amplified shield matrix. Vitals were strong, considering the circumstances. For all that's holy, she had an L2 implant. If you always wanted to make biotics high-risk gambling, go get one of those.

After I did my quick check, my omni-tool already fed back some viable data regarding the Cain_._

'Can do. VI support kicked it, but I could make the thing fire again.' Up to that point, I didn't think about the soldier's implicit intent, or at least, I thoroughly blocked it out, so I gladly took the chance to shine in my field of expertise: 'Thus the effective range is severely decreased and I'd have to monitor the neutron moderators, recalibrating if necessary during charge-up...'

Applauding, the destroyer's cannon thundered as I finally understood.

'Which building, how long will it take?', the Sentinel asked and now the cannon's booming sounded like mocking laughter.

Resigned, I let my tool hastily run some simulations to pin down coordinates for an intact building in range allowing a clear shot at the AA unit and estimated roughly three to five minutes to fix the railgun.

For the first time, the Kestrel-helmet nodded. 'Alright, let's do this.'

'But...' I started, desperately grasping for reason under a burning sky.

'On your feet, soldier!', the booming voice in my helmet commanded. 'We don't know if anybody else is out there to send this thing straight to hell and _Hammer _will get torn apart if no one gets the job done!'

She was most certainly right.

Our chances dwindled in the single digits, but that was way more than the zero, presented by staying here...

'You will blast this Reaper,' , she said calmly, almost forgiving. 'And I'll make sure you get close enough to do just that.'

When her hand reached out, I saw in the reflective visor how she helped that sorry figure in battered, black Alliance armor get back on his feet...

In her voice, sore from all the fighting and shouting, there was a confidence making even that giant reaper in the distance appear tiny, beatable.

'By the way, I'm...' but again, the biotic interfered.

'Doesn't matter,' her words vibrating with trenchant sneer through the ether. 'No one's going to find our dog tags anyway.'


	2. Dance, Dance Till You're Dead

02: Dance, Dance Till You're Dead

Back then, way back then, I always wondered why a light, a candle for example burned brightest right before it'd suffocate.

Needless to say, the metaphor is much more satisfying than the actual chemical explanation.

I like to think it's linked to what I was saying right in the beginning.

Survival.

The last ditch effort to make up for everything missed, even if that meant carving the very last chip of life outta you if it only could delay or even prevent the inevitable.

The tiniest chance to buy some minutes rather than biting the dust was at least enough to enter the '_Fix the Caine!'_ high score, considering the time it took me.

'How is it? Contacts?', I asked, while monitoring my micro fabricator's graphite synthesis.

'All clear.', my newest company answered tersely, after skimming the area with the abandoned sniper rifle.

I felt her frown as I asked for another minute, excavating what was left of my defense turret.

With calm and expertise of a virtuoso pianist I dearly missed since I crashlanded in this meat grinder, me and my omni-tool cannibalized the parts I needed from turret and shuttle, giving them new shape and purpose.

'Looks like the bastard child of a communication receiver and a tuning fork.', Her voice sneered in my ears without taking any spatial detours.

Groaning, I docked the finished construction to the hardpoints on my back and with a high frequency hum it came to life.

'Shield pylon.', I explained, and did so with a good deal of pride. 'Reacts to critically low kinetic barrier emission on our IFF frequency. Four charges, five, if we're lucky, six meter radius.'

I increased its radius at the cost of intensity.

You don't want to cuddle up with people who wrap in warp fields, no matter how controlled those are supposed to be.

I waited in vain for the much deserved credit for this amazing achievement, but at least got an acknowledging slap to the back, followed by an eager 'Time to get this job done.'

Indifferently she discarded the scoped weapon down to the other junk, as if the heavy rifle didn't cost 250k.

Since my mind didn't manage to eventually retreat to a dark, damp place, , I was aware of the fact we'd encounter resistance.

What I also grew aware of, was that my reinforcement took 'getting the job done' pretty fucking serious.

Apart from short, bellowed orders, where I should take cover and when my cryo or plasma pulses were needed, she didn't waste any words on me.

She didn't need to, actually. I learned more about her during our lunatic sprint through London's ruins than she could have probably told me in hours.

Being a good observer is part of the job, you know. If you have a specialized prototype in front of you for the first time, every run tells a good engineer so much about the device's nature, purpose, perspective, flaws...

To stay within this metaphor: In this case the hardware was probably no longer state of the art, but through long service time and the right tweaks over the years she was capable of doing a pretty solid job in regards of what she'd been built for.

It wasn't of the essence _how_ exactly she killed the husks in our way. No matter if she tore them apart or smashed them into walls with her biotics, or conventionally sliced them up with her omniblades if projectiles didn't suffice: There was a certain bitter determination and energy in her way of fighting, making pretty clear she was one of those persons who never wanted to do this job but flourished to full potential in it nonetheless.

You could hand a bag of seeds to her; and she'd go and beat husks to death with it, probably considering alternative application afterward.

And in contrast to me, she didn't seem to grow tired.

With a little inspirational boost from my heart, pumping a hardstyle techno-beat and the constantly booming strobe light of the Hades Cannon I had little problem comparing her wiry armored silhouette to those club dancers; those who dance every night as if they're on fire.

Dedicated to beat and rhythm, lost until the sun rises, but alive like never before, forgetting the problems looming outside.

And this was contagious.

Close to collapsing, I kept going anyway, didn't pay attention to the bullets breaking through my barriers and let my tool spit hot plasma whenever it could squeeze out another pulse.

We ran. The road was finally clear and some 100 meters were between us and our target coordinates: a building scarred by explosions; then she suddenly made me snap back from trance to reality.

Harshly, she forced me against a trash container standing in a near alley and deactivating her tech armor.

Breathing time?

The burned out ad lib pylon found its place among the other trash next to the container after its intense but short lived service. I felt about 100 pounds lighter, but pretty naked at the same time.

I took a look back at the streets, plastered with demolished vehicles, still smoldering junk and debris.

And corpses.

Don't forget about the corpses.

Behind us, scattered on the pavement were the bullet ridden, burned and smashed remains of what were once Turians, Batarians and Humans.

What just happened recoiled like a rubber band stretched closed to snapping.

Wasn't sure if I should cheer or puke, as the image of a Marauder clawed its way back into my mind. Without my pylon, that thing would surely put a nice new hole into my head.

Returning the favor, I simply overloaded its shields and a quick succession of a biotic throw and tech armor powered omniblades got the job done.

Not sure if she'd want to save ammo or if she just had a martial taste for close quarter combat; didn't bother either. As long as dead husks were the result I won't complain.

'Brute.', I heard the static ridden warning within my battered helmet.

Usually, I'm the guy standing at the bar with his only drink that evening, asking myself how all the cool kids managed to have so much fun.

Tonight, though, I wanted to dance.


End file.
